RELEASES
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Rusty Truck founder and frontman Mark Seliger was born in Amarillo, TX and now resides in New York City. Before Seliger's musical career began, however, he established himself as a world-renowned photographer. Today Seliger owns a studio in New York City's West Village and is currently under contract with Condé Nast Publications, shooting for Vanity Fair and GQ. Previously, he was the Chief Photographer for Rolling Stone from 1992 to 2002. While working with Rolling Stone, Seliger shot numerous top names in music, many with whom he developed lasting friendships. It was during that period Seliger also began writing his own music. Jakob Dylan heard Seliger's material and was impressed enough to invite him to his studio to record and write. "Jakob took the time to show me the ropes in a recording studio and produced a demo of ‘Never Going Back.' After that, I was hooked." When Rami Jaffee invited Seliger to play at one of his big jam shows in L.A., he jumped at the chance. Jaffee (The Wallflowers, Foo Fighters) rounded up a group of Los Angeles-based musicians to join Seliger and these players ultimately became Rusty Truck.
In addition to Seliger, Rusty Truck consists of drummer Joey Peters (Grant Lee Buffalo), guitarist Michael Duff (best known for his melodic playing style with Chalk Farm), Nashville-based dobro and lap-steeler Andy Gibson (Hank Williams III), and bassist Sheldon Gomberg (Ryan Adams and Warren Zevon). Completing the ensemble is Kristin Mooney, a singer who lends her sweet, rootsy voice to the album's signature three-part harmonies with Seliger and Duff. The band is, to say the least, talented and promising. Their abilities together inspired Seliger to step up his writing and performing.
Lenny Kravitz caught one of Rusty Truck's L.A. gigs and after the show suggested that the song "Broken Promises" would make a great single. "It's a lonely, mid-tempo ballad, fictitiously based on a rodeo cowboy who loves his life on the road but keeps dreaming about eventually coming home," Seliger explains. "The idea of creating a character and adding the visual landscape is what interests me in songwriting."
Seliger collaborated on the track at Kravitz's Miami studio and over time the pair worked on a few more songs: the lovely and lyrical "Fool" and "Prey," the album's haunting closer. The collaborations continued when Seliger sought out other partners. "I wanted to work with people whose songwriting I really admired, like Gillian Welch, Sheryl Crow, T-Bone Burnett and Willie Nelson."
To Seliger's delight, the seeds of Luck's Changing Lanes had begun to germinate. Recording sessions went down all over the place - in Austin, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York and Miami. "It took a year and a half of juggling to get the tracks done," he says, "so I used that time to really refine the songs."
Jakob Dylan uses the phrase "lonesome music" to describe the Rusty Truck sound and Seliger agrees. "It is kind of lonesome," says Seliger. "It's about memory, despair, self-discovery, and love gone wrong. A perfect world for country songwriting."
In contrast to the more individualistic act of taking photographs, a band can be satisfyingly democratic. "It's a much more pleasant experience because you're up there and everybody is just playing off each other and you have the opportunity to affect people instantly. And that's very different from what I do visually, as a photographer. I'm an entertainer, either way, but a different kind of entertainer."
It's been quite the journey since Seliger wrote "Never Going Back" with Dylan, but the hard-earned collection of songs that comprise Luck's Changing Lanes speaks for itself. Even Seliger is a little in awe of the accomplishment. "Everyone involved in the making of it is amazing," he says proudly. "It's an incredible cast of artists and I couldn't be happier with the result."
Originally available as a limited release under the title Broken Promises, this debut album has been expanded and thoroughly re-imagined as Luck's Changing Lanes, (including new songs and a bonus DVD with an impressive DTS 5.1 surround sound mix and five videos) giving Mark Seliger's songs and unique American imagery the presentation they deserve.
"They're just beautiful songs that express what he has to say."
- Lenny Kravitz
"Mark's been fooling himself with that picture stuff. He's a sidetracked songwriter."
- Jakob Dylan
"Rock photographer makes startlingly adept alt-country debut...anyone who can hold his own in a duet with Willie Nelson, as Seliger does in "1000 Kisses," is the real deal. - Rolling Stone
"A wordy, cinematic trip rooted in ‘70s-era country pop, perhaps somewhere between Neil Young's earthy Harvest, Harry Nilsson's swooning "Everybody's Talkin'," and the troubadour tradition rooted in Seliger's home state of Texas." - No Depression
"This is no vanity project; Seliger is a real find as a writer, and his understated vocals have a rough-hewn but genuine charm."
-HITS